Roommate's boyfriend sleeping in dorm room?

Question

I am a Resident Advisor at a unitiversity for a freshman's dorm. I have one resident who is very uncomfortable about her roommate who has guys sleep over a lot of the time. She does not want to confront her roommate about the situation because she does not want tension with her roommate. As the RA, my job is to cite people who break these types of violations. I have not yet caught her roommate in order to give a citation, but have been in my office when she was about to bring a guy in after visiation hours until she saw me in my office on the hallway. Her boyfriend lives faraway and I feel bad for both of the residents in the situation because one has to feel uncomfortable with strange men in the room and the other does not have a place to allow her boyfriend. How do I talk to both of them? I know that I need to be fair to the one who is uncomfortable with strange men in her room,but how do I address the other roommate?

Answer 1

A few years ago, most dorms had rules which ensured that this wouldn't happen and I'll bet neither girl's parents would be thrilled to hear that there was a boy sleeping in the room on a regular basis. You suggest that it is a violation in your dorm as well, so it shouldn't be too hard. There are a lot of things which make this more than uncomfortable. The offending roommate needs to understand that the room isn't hers to use as she chooses independent of her roommate (I'll bet she had her own room at her parents' house, or if not, that she would not have had the boyfriends in the room with her sisters). It is also the case that each girl is paying half the rent for a two-person room - suddenly the roommate is having to share with two other people, which isn't fair to her. Also, the year has just started, and you say she has "boyfriends" - plural - sleeping over a lot of the time. That sounds like the roommate isn't being very discriminating, which could be dangerous to both of them.

The obvious solution, while it won't give the roommate with the men the opportunity to sleep through the night with them, is that she needs to make arrangements with male friends to let the out of town boyfriend stay with them when he visits. If this is okay with her roommate, she may do this on an exchange basis with the girlfriend of one of the guys (whose roommate probably also doesn't feel comfortable with having the girlfriend sleep over).

It sounds like you need to toughen up a bit as an R.A. The boyfriend isn't paying for room and board and has no basic right to stay there. In every situation you face, there will be reason to sympathize, but this one should be relatively easy to handle.

Answer 2

I would go ahead and have a talk with the roommate that is bringing a guy into the dorms. Don't wait until she has her boyfriend there, that will just escalate the situation. Explain the rules to her and tell her that you are sorry about her predicament, but rules are rules. Especially when the comfort and security of another student is in question. If "spending the night" together is so important for them, then they could spring for a cheap motel room. Then, if after you talk to her, she brings the boyfriend back to the dorm rooms for an overnight, you can make sure she is penalized and she won't be able to claim she didn't know better.

Answer 3

You're not a cop, so you don't have to catch her in the act to talk to her. You could talk to the girl yourself about her guests, but the best solution would be to have to offended girl confront her roommate about it herself. She needs to deal with this. She needs to learn how to deal with people she has differences with. If you want to serve as a mediator, that might be good.